Kaveh Safavi, Managing Director and Health Industry Lead for North America at Accenture (ACN), Interviews with The Wall Street Transcript

67 WALL STREET, New York - October 28, 2013 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Health Care IT Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs and Equity Analysts. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

In the following excerpt from the Health Care IT Report, the Managing Director and Health Industry Lead for North America at Accenture (ACN) discusses company strategy and the outlook for this vital industry:

TWST: Another thing we talked a lot about last year was your state business. Can you give us an update as to what's happening on that front?

Dr. Safavi: The state business continues to be an important area of growth for us. As you know, state business is complicated by the fact that there are basically two components - Medicaid modernization and expansion, and public health insurance exchanges - both of which are very political issues these days. So the pace of growth is, in some ways, affected by the politics.

That being said, those segments have continued to grow as we had hoped, largely because every state, no matter its politics, has to figure out how to modernize its Medicaid system. The insurance exchange issue was affected by a pause related to the original Supreme Court decision, but we have seen a pickup as that uncertainty was cleared. We're seeing that many states who initially decided not to have an exchange are starting with a federal exchange and plan to build their own state exchange over time. The growth of that business was affected by the pause, but we expect that business to continue to grow as states do what we thought they were going to do two years ago.

TWST: M&A is always a hot topic in this industry. Can you give us a sense of Accenture's philosophy on the health care side as you look toward potential deals and acquisitions going forward?

For more of this interview and many others visit the Wall Street Transcript - a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs, portfolio managers and research analysts. This special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.